Drink
by JeDormisToutLeTemps
Summary: At dinner, Haymitch drinks, because he doesn't want to die without having a sip. ;/; Haymitch from the second Quarter Quell to the epiloge, with alcohol thrown in.


He's reaped - and really, it's not that far of a stretch, considering. He's stuck with a townie, and two seam rats, wearing, but not quite filling out, their parent's best.

The rats are allies, he can tell. Townie looks him up and down, and he does the same to her. Immediately, they say with the other, "no."

Getting into the Capitol is a vague thing - he already knows he's playing sullen, touch-me-and-I'll-kill-you, so he doesn't wave, and there's nothing there he cares about. His brother, his Momma, his girl, they're all back in Twelve - so there's nothing he wants to see.

The four tributes from a lot of the other districts - Seven and the Careers, obviously - are gigundous and burly and possibly just as sullen and stand-offish as he is. That won't do. He's got to be the most sullen - the Capitol loves turning the sullen boy into anything else, though.

At dinner, Haymitch drinks, because he doesn't want to die without having a sip.

* * *

He gets to the finals, and he supposes he's happy. Maybe he'll see Venture and Pleione again. Maybe he won't. All he knows is, he'll forever regret being in the finals, because it came with Maysilee's life being taken away.

While Momma and Venture and Pleione are celebrating, he knows that Althea and Dixie, her sisters or cousins or something, are probably bawling their eyes out. He knows _he_ wants to bawl his eyes out.

Mostly, he lets the others pick each other off while he hides out on the edge. He's the last one left for the big girl he knows should win to kill. He lets her think that he's clueless - starting a fire, luring her there. She's so excited about becoming victor that she doesn't realize the ruse.

Her own axe kills her in the end - and really, she shouldn't weigh on his conscience for years to come, but she does anyway. He hates her for it.

When they pull him up and get him back to wherever - he doesn't remember - Haymitch drinks until he can't feel himself making awful decisions.

* * *

He comes home. He kisses Pleoine and he hugs Venture and he cries until he can't breathe (and the weight is _still there_) with his Momma.

A passing comment about how much he hates the Capitol - he's drunk when he says it - kills them, kills him.

He doesn't remember hearing how it happened, just that he went from hero to zero in two seconds and he'd never felt that shitty.

He should hate alcohol. Instead, he turns to it, listens to it's luring song, and goes after it like the fool he is.

Haymitch drinks well after the funeral.

* * *

His first tributes are thirteen and seventeen and they die at the cornicopia. He didn't know their names, just that it was Career spear to the gut for him and a slit throat for her.

In that instant, he knows he can't do this. He couldn't. He'd lost Maysilee and Venture, Pleoine and Momma, and these two unnamed dead kids. One of them was his age, dammit! He can't lose anyone else. He's not ready.

Chaff, that year's Eleven victor, tries to console him.

He didn't even know he was crying.

A hole in the wall, shaped like a fist, appears in front of him, but he doesn't remember losing it like that.

Haymitch drinks and it's bitter on the way down. Good. He wants to suffer.

* * *

Every year, year after year after year, his tributes die. He sees them die and he does nothing about it, because he can't.

He can't risk what he now has, now that his family and lover are dead. The booze lady, R something, and Lucille Prembrooked, the chipper escort that grates on his nerves like no one else, are all he has. One hates him and he hates the other. That's life, he supposes.

He wouldn't say he's given up, but he has. There's no reason to stick his neck out for all the kids he sends off to premature death.

Sullen and touch-me-and-I'll-kill-you and stand-offish? Hell yes. No one bothers him, except the fuckers from Eleven, but he likes them, sorta, so it's okay.

Haymitch drinks for sport now, drinks because Chaff and Woof think they can beat him. Bullshit. (He's champ.)

* * *

He watches at Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason, and later, Annie Cresta win their own respective games. He's been at it a long time by now, but so has Mags and Wiress and Enobaria, who truly doesn't hate him.

Plutchart Heavansbee comes to him and asks him to talk to the young victors - Finnick wins at fourteen, Johanna at sixteen and Annie at seventeen. So, he does. There's a rebellion stirring.

He _can't wait_.

As he helps Finnick out - the kid's shocked and teary eyed and Haymitch has to resist giving him some scotch - he finds excitement welling up.

Haymitch drinks to keep himself at bay, to keep from spilling that the Capitol - which has costed every victor _so much_ \- is getting the plug pulled on it.

* * *

Enobaria doesn't hate him.

He hasn't been around as long as Mags, hell no, but he's old news, the boy who won the Quarter Quell and only lives to steer his district to grief.

But. Enobaria doesn't hate him - no one does, and maybe Finnick looks up to him, which is bad. That's why Annie is chosen, because Finnick Odair can't keep his trap shut. Snow makes sure the slip chosen has Finnick's lady love's name on it, and he makes sure Finnick has a fun first time with some neon light they call a woman.

Johanna acts indifferent around him, like how he used to be with Beetee and Cecilia and the morphlings - wait, check that, he's still indifferent to them. You'd think, after killing his own peers, that some old hags on drugs wouldn't psych a person out, but it does. They do, and it's a weakness.

Annie ignores him like the plauge, which he's fine with. That's one of the worst parts about being a victor. Seeing everything, reliving everything, thinking you're in danger - but you're not, and when you wake up, you have to turn that part of your mind off. Annie isn't the worst he's seen, which is saying something.

No, none of the victors hate Haymitch, just as he doesn't hate him. He can relate to some of them - Johanna's family is killed, just like his.

Haymitch drinks because he's a raging alcoholic and he can't be stopped. He wants to drink. He wants to lose it. Sometimes, he wants to slit his throat like his first tribute, almost in memoriam. He never does, though. Someone's gotta be there for his district.

* * *

He remembers his mentor.

The old man had been happy at his return, but also so grief stricken that he wouldn't talk to anyone, especially the Greastest Victor Of Them All.

He remembers his escort.

She was so proud of him. No, she was happy that the district she got stuck with actually won one. She was just happy that she could brag about her only winning victor, the one who won the Quell.

He remembers that girl, the last one.

She was so angry and aggressive and the look on her face when she felt the axe go through her - he can't forget it. It keeps him up, sometimes.

He remembers the last time he ever saw Venture, Pleoine and Momma.

Venture had smiled at him. Pleoine had told him that her father approved now, because he was rich and had food to give. Momma had hugged him and said she loved him - and he hadn't minded the mushy.

Haymitch just drinks, now. There's no reason, not really. There's just too much he remembers for him to be sober most of the time.

* * *

The 74th rolls around. He's been at it for twenty-four years. That's the same number of tributes he was a part of - forty-eight.

This year, he's got a townie and a seam rat. The townie - Peeta something - is actually interested in hearing what he should do to survive.

The seam rat - Katpiss, maybe - volunteered. She's the first he's ever had that volunteered.

Things happen - he doesn't remember - but he realizes he's got at least one fighter this year. The seam rat throws a knife and it goes between two slats in the train car's wall. Townie looks like he's in love with her. Sigh.

That year, he does what he knows he shouldn't. He gets attached.

Peeta makes them the Star Crossed Lovers, and he can see where it's no lie. Peeta "betrays" Katniss by going with the careers. He'd told Peeta to do something like that - and Peeta'd pulled through.

Katniss - okay, so her name is not Katpiss, sue him - is skilled with a bow and arrow. Peeta can camouflage himself. Hoorah.

He manages to convince the gamemakers to let them think they can both win, after Peeta gets hurt protecting Katniss and Katniss has lost the girl from Eleven. Katniss goes after him, goes and gets him away from the riverbank and helps him.

They stay in a cave and he's actually doing something this time around, actually _hoping_.

If Peeta loses his leg, well. If he's the winner - which Haymitch both wants and doesn't think will happen, due to Peeta's love for Katniss, who doesn't know how to properly kiss him and make it look real - then he'll get a prosthetic.

There's a moment that it seems like Katniss is doomed to die helping her lover. They both make it through. They both make a statement. He knows Nightlock berries will never be in an arena again.

Haymitch drinks in celebration, even though Katniss had to be sedated and Peeta almost died during the amputation surgery.

* * *

The 75th rolls around. He knows what's going to happen after it's announced. Peeta's going in no matter what, Finnick is doomed to be in it with Annie or Mags and Johanna will volunteer simply because she has no one else to come home to.

Chaff and Seeder and the other oldies are going to go in, too. To spare the young-uns, they say.

Enobaria's going to go in because the Capitol loves her and she'll do whatever they put in front of her.

Brutus, Cashmere and Gloss are going to go in simply because they love the fight.

Haymitch drinks and drinks. How can he do this? He can't. He can't watch his friends and his tributes die.

* * *

Plutchart tells him that some of the others are in on it. That rebellion? It's now.

So, he tells Katniss and Peeta - easily the youngest, and going two for two - that they need to ally with Finnick and Johanna and Three and whoever they want, just not the careers. This time, Four doesn't count as a career district because both Finnick and Mags are in on the plot and they want to help Katniss become the Mockingjay.

As they go in, Haymitch consoles Annie because she's the mentor this year. In the end, Four benefits more from him than Annie.

He helps as best as he can. Effie stays with him a lot, crying, because she realizes how cruel the Capitol is now. Effie used to be entertained - now, she just watches and cries and apologizes over and over. She's attached, too.

They get Katniss and Beetee and Finnick out. Peeta, Annie, Enobaria and Johanna are less fortunate. It's a struggle to deal with both Katniss' and Finnick's depression over their love's disappearance. That they're in district Thirteen is only a downer. It's awful.

Haymitch drinks because it's a shitty situation they're in and he can't do anything. This time, he can't help and he can't stand it.

* * *

He wants to die, he realizes. Peeta and Johanna are gone. They took Annie down father than she was with them.

Finnick is unable to process that Annie is gone and that he has to live without her. He's happy to be free of the Capitol, but Finnick wants Annie. It's worse, because now he has no one, not Mags, not Annie, just Katniss, the girl on fire who keeps herself from crying everyday.

Katniss has her mother, Prim, Gale and Gale's family, but she wants Peeta. She just had to understand that she loves him after he's been hijacked.

He wants to die, because he doesn't have anyone either. All of his friends are dead or hijacked and not themselves.

Even after getting them back, he wants to die. Johanna is scared, now. Annie won't do anything but clench her hands over her ears and cry. Peeta screams well into the night that Katniss is a mutt - that he needs to kill her nasty mutt self.

And then, because his life can only get better, Finnick dies. Annie's pregnant. Gale kills Prim and even though he didn't know the little girl, it hurts. President Coin gets killed by Katniss. (She's so different from when they first met. Back then, she killed as least as possible. Now, she kills without remorse, and it's because in her seventeen years of life, she's never had it easy.)

Haymitch drinks because it presents an invisible wall that keeps him from his problems. (And that damn wall. It had nearly killed him to watch his two friends, the two kids he'd gotten to know and mentor, have to listen to that. It was awful to see them reduced to Annie's favorite avoidance technique.)

* * *

Finnick's son grows up. He looks so much like his father, that it hurts and stings. How could Annie possibily live with the spitting image of Finnick right there?

Katniss and Peeta wait for kids - which is good, because they don't need to have kids when they're still teenagers. But when they do, he's their uncle.

He's Finnick's sons' uncle, too.

Haymitch doesn't drink anymore.


End file.
